Start 2024 by abandoning your 'guilt trips' - go on an 'accomplishment' trip!
Think about it - if you are someone who is driven to succeed, you can often end up being pretty harsh on yourself. Every mistake is magnified, every misstep is overblown, every misjudgment is taken out of proportion. With that in mind, let's take a look at how you can turn your feelings of regret for what you did yesterday into opportunities for what you can accomplish tomorrow.
Something I've been thinking about in the last little while is that, through AI, I've been 'learning to talk to myself.' What do I mean? Over the last few weeks and months, I've been busy feeding some of my material to an AI, to quiz, query, and ask questions about the material.
In some cases, this has allowed me to quiz the many thousands of pages of research I've collected for past and upcoming keynotes. Two recent examples involve keynotes on the role of AI in manufacturing and the medical sciences - and this has been an absolute game changer in my ability to go through vast volumes of material to hone in on key statistics, trends, and examples. For example, I can quickly discover powerful stories and examples of the actual use of AI in the manufacturing industry, which feeds directly into the keynote slides I use in my leadership talk:
In other cases, I've been spending time learning how to quiz my material to gain insight into what I've been thinking about, or to find themes and trends that I tend to focus on. With today's inspirational quote in hand, for example, I decided to take a look at how I might have already covered this theme.
How did I do this? Just yesterday, I completed the task of feeding to an AI the several thousands of posts (1902 to be exact) and thousands of pages that I've written in this Daily Inspiration series since August 2016 - to ask questions about it. With that being the case, I took today's inspiration post - "Shift from obsessing over what you've done wrong - to celebrating what you are doing right!" - and started asking questions both around the post and the idea that goes with it. It's fascinating to discover what I've been writing and thinking about concerning this issue!
In effect, I'm learning how to quiz my mind!
I've covered this issue (failure into success, guilt into pride) in terms of the overall idea of taking personal responsibility for mistakes - noting that when mistakes are made, it's all too easy to blame other people. "Blame is the coward’s way of trying to avoid responsibility for their failure," I wrote at one point - highlighting the idea that shifting blame onto others is a sign of avoiding personal accountability. Not a good start on the path to success!
I've also suggested that rather than focus on regret and guilt, turn these feelings into opportunities:
- "Don’t be discouraged by your mistakes. Be inspired by your willingness to admit to them!"
- 'It’s better to spend time creating ideas that might lead to success instead of seeking excuses for actions that led to failure!'"
- "Rather than spending your time thinking about what is going wrong, spend more time thinking about what is going right!"
My key theme, then, is that it would be better to transition from any shame over mistakes you might have made in the past - to pride in sharing the lessons learned from them. This allows you to shift from guilt - or in some cases shame - to a more constructive approach to learning and growth. Turn these issues into opportunities!
Indeed, taking responsibility and learning from mistakes is essential for your future development, and I seem to have emphasized that quite a bit through the years. This includes owning up to your reality:
- “Your excuses are usually a pretty poor eraser of your reality!”
- “Try as you might, you can’t mask your mistakes and hide your failures forever!”
Remorse for what went wrong can fuel an attitude of opportunity by helping you to focus on your learning and growth. This process of introspection and self-assessment can help you shift your mindset - you can refocus on what you can learn from your mistakes rather than dwelling on the negative aspects of the past. All in all, it's all about turning setbacks into opportunities and mistakes as learning experiences!
- “Rather than focusing on the downside of the negatives – try to find the upside in the positives!”
- "Failure? Take more time to learn from what went right, rather than focusing on what went wrong!"
- "Don’t stress about the things you did wrong. Refocus and learn from the things you did right!
Overall, I seem to focus quite a bit on the idea of using mistakes and failures as stepping stones to success and moving forward:
- “…incremental innovation? A continuous series of mistakes…”
- “Failure is your secret weapon! Don’t be scared of making a mistake – be terrified of not making enough of them!”
- “When you stop making mistakes, you’ve stopped trying to achieve success!”
- “Spend more time with successful failures!”
Overall? Failure is good for you!
- “Your absolutely worst failure? It’s also your biggest opportunity!”
Food for thought!
Futurist Jim Carroll has been writing his Daily Inspiration post since August 2016, and has not missed one work day. He does not intend for this to be his first! It's funny that a post about failure involved a day in which his Web server was suffering a failure!